


The Next Step Is Erratic Progress

by honeykang



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst and Humor, Aomine Daiki & Momoi Satsuki Friendship, Brotp, Coping, Implied Aomine Daiki/Kise Ryouta, M/M, One-Sided Relationship, One-sided Aomine Daiki/Kise Ryouta, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Rejection, aomine learns to be a human being, momoi is the horrible person we need her to be, who knew aomine was such a tender romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 20:09:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9623507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeykang/pseuds/honeykang
Summary: In which Aomine is heartbroken, jealous, and entitled, and struggles with not getting what he wants, for once.AU in which the Generation of Miracles all attend the same university, and they only hate each other sometimes, when they don’t have other things to do.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I know this could be better but I like it decently enough now, and if I didn’t get it out of my system I would fail all of my finals. Chronic underachievement forever! Also Momoi/Aomine BroTP forever.

Aomine is the first to find out. This is not because Kise _tells_ him, of course; Kise hasn’t told Aomine about his love life since they were in seventh grade, when Aomine managed to “accidentally” announce to the entire class every detail of Kise’s unflattering, hulking crush on their Biology teacher.  No, Aomine is probably the last person Kise would tell about his love life—but Aomine is the first to find out anyway, because he is a _nosy son of a bitch_ without a sense for the _concept of_ _personal space_.

(These are, naturally, Satsuki’s words).

How it happens is this: Kise receives a text at 8:58 AM, two minutes before World Literature. Aomine’s eyes are still barely functioning from a lack of sleep and a lack of interest, but when Kise pulls his phone from his pocket and slides the message open inches beside him, he happens to glance at the screen, at a grey speech bubble that says:

8:58 AM: _If you’re not busy, can I see you again tonight?_

Aomine yawns, netting his fingers behind his head. “Another stalker fan?” he drawls incoherently at Kise’s general direction.

Kise doesn’t respond, however, because he is too wrapped up in the message to notice. Which is weird, for Kise to ignore Aomine; so Aomine turns; and, slowly, the world itself clears like someone has wiped it down with a microfiber cloth—and his heart collides against his ribcage so hard he forgets to breathe for a moment. He sets his feet squarely on the ground and feels suddenly very, very heavy. Before he can stop himself, Aomine looks at the screen again, this time at a cobalt blue speech bubble:

8:59 AM:  _Your place or mine?_

Aomine watches in disbelief as Kise bites back a smile; draws in a sharp breath as the gray ellipses appear again and lets slip from his lips a fucking _giggle,_ so lovestruck and so sweet that he’s shocked the sound came from a human and not a fucking newborn dolphin. Kise stares at the screen until it dims, the device shaking in his hands; his cheeks are warming, even in the over-air-conditioned classroom, even in his thin uniform, even though it’s the dead of winter, even though—

“What the _fuck?”_

Kise jumps three feet at the voice in his ear, slamming the phone down on the desk as he spins around to glare. Aomine is half-sitting, half leaning over his desk, ass barely touching the seat of his chair and face an inch from his; Kise yanks himself backward, right into the corner of the windowsill. He groans at the dull pain, but Aomine whips out a hand for his phone-holding wrist and pulls Kise forward, eyes incredulous.

“What the _fuck?”_ he says again, like Kise is supposed to decipher his meaning from that. Kise scowls at him, prying Aomine’s fingers from his paling hand.

“Ow, Aominecchi,” he snaps in exasperation, finally freeing himself.

Aomine doesn’t miss the way he drops his phone first, hiding it with his leg. He doesn’t grab him again, but stares at his fingers where he pried him off, practically sputtering in disbelief. “Are you _dating?”_

Kise sits back and regards him, considers him—not deeply enough to strain himself, but enough to really see him for a moment. And in that moment, he feels vilified, dissect-ified, like a flatworm with one set of scientifically defined characteristics to reveal: He has dyed hair and tanned skin; he wears his uniform as sloppily as possible, only partly on purpose; he woke up probably twelve minutes ago and he hasn’t washed his face. He gets smashed six days a week, leaving the last day for rest, as if he is God creating a beautiful, horrendously carefree world. He does his homework only when Satsuki tells him to, and only half of it at that. This is Aomine, in his only form, and Kise is seeing and analyzing and deciding something about him right now that suddenly feels very, very—

“You were peeking at my phone,” says Kise icily. “Apologize.”

—Bad.

“Sorry,” snaps Aomine instinctively, and then pauses and repeats, really meaning it: “ _I’m sorry.”_

Kise blinks at him, looking more surprised than Aomine wishes he’d look. But Kise smiles beautifully, gloriously, casually, and nods in satisfaction before beginning to turn away. This isn’t enough. Aomine shakes his head, and he opens his mouth to blurt something even stupider when their professor strolls in with an exhausted grimace on his face and entire pot of black coffee in his hands. He takes one look at Aomine, drawls out a _“Quiet down, please,”_ and begins writing out the equation for the volume of a sphere on the whiteboard.

Aomine sinks down. In his periphery, he sees Kise running his thumb over his darkened phone, as if he is holding the world in his hands.

Aomine needs an airbag.

\---

He tracks Kise down during break at practice, where he is sitting on a bench with Murasakibara, Midorima, Satsuki, and a package of Swedish Fish. Kise’s teeth are glued together with red solidified sugar behind his laughter. Murasakibara is telling them an unsolicited story about spilling his bag of Yummy Pops down the library stairs after an unsuspecting first-year bumped into him; Kise’s empathetic laughter floats over the polished court, lovely and kind, and he hates himself for never noticing it. For never noticing him.

For never _noticing_ him.

He marches forward, sweaty, lanky arms hanging over his sweaty t-shirt and breath escaping his throat in puffs of steam. Kise’s eyelashes are frosting over from the winter air from the open gymnasium door; there are tears in his eyes from laughing so hard. Aomine wants to kiss them until they melt.

Kise bites into a Swedish Fish head, inspects the tail, chews, and then bites it in half again. He looks up and says, “Aominecchi?”

All four of them look down at him, waiting. 

He blurts out: “I think I’m in love with you.” 

Time freezes for a cruel moment. This is not going as smoothly as he’d planned, partly because he hasn’t planned much of it at all. Murasakibara, Midorima, Satsuki, and the Swedish Fish immediately fall silent. Aomine looks up at Kise, eyes steady and intense. 

Kise stares at him. 

And then he bursts into laughter. 

Kise sucks the Swedish Fish corpses from his teeth, tongue sliding over his molars. He is still staring at Aomine as he runs through a possible set of less-stupid things he could say next. Before he can, Kise drops the half-finished package of Swedish Fish into his lap. 

Aomine hates Swedish Fish. 

“No,” Kise says, “You’re not.” 

“Yes, I am,” Aomine says fiercely. The intensity of his statement seems to unlock something in both of them; . Aomine tries to steady back into balance on his feet, and Kise’s eyes go dark, the humor dissipating from his lips. 

“No,” he snaps, standing, _“you’re not.”_  

Silence; and then he strolls away. Midorima snorts at Aomine on the ground before following him to the courts. Murasakibara plucks the Swedish Fish from his lap before following them away. Satsuki is the cruelest; she slides off the bench and levels her gaze with him. 

“That was the worst confession I’ve ever heard, Dai-chan,” she says cheerily, popping a final fish into her mouth. 

He sits in silence on the court and wants to die. 

\--- 

Aomine finds him next walking home. He catches him by the elbow and says, “Is there someone else?” 

Kise takes a deep breath, directing his gaze heavenward as if seeking divine guidance. He pauses for a long moment, thinking, and then decides: “Yes.” 

Aomine knew this was the answer, because of the very unambiguous text with which he infringed Kise’s privacy. Still, it feels like being impaled with a pen, like ink poisoning from the word is seeping into his very veins and heading straight for his heart. “Tell me who it is. I’ll kill him.” 

Kise raises an eyebrow, looking amused. “How romantic,” he says lightly, clapping him on the shoulder. Aomine’s skin tingles where he touched him, but Kise releases him immediately and looks at his watch. Kise’s mouth shapes into a little O, his eyes brightening, and he smiles sweetly at him, sparkling as he looks somewhere far beyond him. Aomine shifts, as if to help him see him again. “Aominecchi—I have to go.” 

“Why?” Aomine demands, a little too sharply. “Is it a date? Is it a date?” 

Kise huffs, finally starting to look annoyed. “First of all,” he says, lifting a finger, “it’s none of your business. Second of all, it’s perfectly natural for me to have a date without you getting heated up over it. And third of all—” He holds up three fingers in front of his seething face, “Yes, it is a date. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“Have you ever been on a date before? There are crazy people out there. How many times have you met this person? Is it a guy? Is it a girl?” Aomine is sputtering. “Do you know anything about him?” 

“I’m an adult,” says Kise calmly, amusedly. “I can handle the adult world.” 

“You’re nineteen and you don’t know anything about the world,” he blurts—a statement so profoundly ridiculous that Kise just stares at him, content to give him a condescending smile as his only retort. Aomine feels himself shrivel in that moment, like a slug in the Dead Sea. He tries to think of a less morbid metaphor. He comes up with: a thousand-year-old poorly-embalmed corpse in the Dead Sea. 

Aomine whips out a hand and catches his wrist, eyes pleading. “Don’t,” he orders, but it sounds like an unadulterated plea. “Don’t go to him. I don’t even know who it is.” 

Calmly, Kise peels his fingers from his wrist, jaw tight in annoyance. “So?” 

Aomine doesn’t have an answer. “Kise,” says Aomine. He drops his gaze, trying to think of something omnipotent to say. “Kise.” 

“Why are you doing this?” says Kise lowly. “All of a sudden?” 

Aomine knows what he means. It isn’t right. It isn’t right, because—god. He doesn’t want to think about this right now. 

Instead, Aomine takes a deep breath. “He’ll hurt you,” he says desperately. 

“I’m leaving now,” Kise cuts. “Please stop talking, or I might kill you.” 

As he watches Kise walk away, Aomine wishes he would. 

\--- 

Satsuki and Tetsu find him on the street ball court that night, dribbling two balls at once. There is no one else on the court, but he is still showing off, as if to remind himself how awesome he is. Does Kise realize how awesome he is? Kise used to be obsessed with him. With everything he did. 

“Because I _am,”_ insists Aomine, shooting the balls one after another into the hoop. They drop in effortlessly without touching the metal, one after another, as if to support him. At least basketball will never betray him. He goes after one of them while Tetsu catches the other. _“Awesome.”_  

“I just don’t see where this is coming from,” says Satsuki, inspecting her split ends by the lamppost. “You had every opportunity for the past six years to have him. He would have crawled over to you from any end of the earth. And now that he’s over you, you suddenly _think_ you want him?” 

“I don’t _think,”_ Aomine snaps. 

“No, you don’t,” agrees Satsuki. 

He scowls at her, and she smiles serenely back. 

“Shut up, Satsuki, bastard. So I’m stupid. Is that a crime?” 

“You’re entitled,” Satsuki says. “That _is_ a crime, in love. Right, Tetsu-kun?” 

“Both,” says Tetsu, shooting the ball at the hoop. It bounces off the rim and into oblivion. Satsuki positively glows at him, and Aomine decides Satsuki knows nothing about love. 

\--- 

Kise and Aomine’s relationship is like this: Aomine has been an asshole for six years. Well, he has been an asshole for _twenty_ , but Kise has only known him for six, so that’s where Aomine can start. Six years of asshole-ing is easier to fix than twenty. 

“I don’t have to _fix_ anything,” Aomine growls. “I’m awesome.” 

“Shhh,” says Satsuki, “don’t interrupt.” 

Aomine is an asshole because of three reasons: (1) he, as mentioned, is indeed awesome, and he never needed to learn manners; (2) as a result, he never _did_ learn manners; and (3) the world has been too easy for too long, preventing him from realizing he really should have learned manners. 

“Ergo,” says Satsuki. She is sprawled out over his mattress, wearing his sweatshirt and a pair of booty shorts, a stack of textbooks untouched between them. “Rude. Takes things for granted.” 

“Talented.”

_“Entitled.”_  

“He likes that,” insists Aomine. 

“He _liked_ you,” says Satsuki, emphasizing the past tense beyond necessity, _“despite_ that.” 

Satsuki thinks she’s a psychiatrist. 

But indeed, despite Aomine’s assholiness over the past six years, he has to admit that Kise neither approved nor disapproved of his actions, but rather kept himself carefully separated from it all. 

Besides, continues Satsuki, this turn of events was only to be expected. There are rumors that Kise is 60 percent of the reason for applicants at this university, and every class people think he’ll take is always filled up within minutes. Aomine just never noticed how popular he was until he finally said yes to one. 

“Do you know who it is?” Aomine says finally, after a long silence. 

“I know _of_ him. I know _about_ him. And I know he’s a pretty decent guy.” 

“Tell me.” 

“He’s happy, Dai-chan,” she says instead, in exasperation, and he can feel his arms tighten at that string of words. “And as much as I love you, I’m not going to help you split them up.”

When she puts it that way, Aomine hates himself. He’s not quite used to that feeling, to guilt, but tonight is apparently a fantastic night for first feelings.

This last thing, Aomine does not say out loud, but Satsuki beams at him anyway: “How sensitive you’re being,” she gushes, reaching for a textbook to fold her arms over and nap on. “Kise-kun is such a generous influence on you.”

\---

Kise visits Aomine in his dreams that night, and the night after that, and the night after that. They are not wet dreams; they are so pure, so sweet, and so serene that Aomine is actually scared of what is happening to him.

Kise in his dreams is like this: soft blond hair, unprimped, unprodded, in thick locks over his eyes. Skin smooth as silk in pale light. He sits in a chair across a vast, empty room, a book in his lap; he is wearing a thin gray t-shirt, one that drapes over his collarbones with sleeves that fall loosely to his elbows. Aomine imagines running his fingertips down his throat. He imagines gazing at him for eternity. He imagines kissing his lips until they bruise.

He imagines taking him out to dinner.

Even in his dreams, he does not do that. 

“Kise,” Aomine says finally, voicelessly, watching him like he is the moon herself. His words reverberate around the empty room, and Aomine is scared they won’t reach so far. 

But Kise blinks at the pages of the book, once, twice, before looking up, a surprised little O on his lips. Slowly, his mouth curves into an amused smile. Aomine is too scared to smile back, to change anything at all, as if this whole situation is predicated on something outside his control, on rules he doesn’t know and is afraid to touch. Between them, a single golden lightbulb hangs steady against the mirrored walls, brightening the wooden floor beneath them to four times the brightness. It lights up Kise’s face like he’s beyond humanity, a celestial being, and Aomine thinks for a moment that he is just like that: a single human with all the light of humanity itself, every aspect of its emotion, its fury and its beauty and its wonder and its mystery. Its love. Its violence. 

And suddenly Kise’s arm reaches out to him, and pulls Aomine into his arms, like Kise has conquered both time and space, like a God, like a lack of reason, like the universe itself. He pulls him in for a kiss.

Aomine always wakes up just before their lips touch. He doesn’t care, he tells himself. It wouldn’t be enough anyway, he tells himself. 

He shoves his face into a pillow and begs for sleep. 

\--- 

It takes Aomine one week to leave Kise alone. 

Kise always comes into school now with flushed cheeks, a secret smile, and unfocused, lovestruck eyes. Aomine sees this, and he can feel himself die every time he does; not his heart or his mind or anything stupid like that, but his stomach, his lungs. He feels sick. He needs an airbag. He needs cyanide and arsenic. He settles with Satsuki. 

He knew this before, but now he officially confirms that Momoi Satsuki is the worst comfort in the world: teasing and condescending and all-around _mean,_ especially considering he can’t even manage a properly horrible retort these days. But she is understanding; and when she sees that they’re about to run into Kise if they turn this corner around the equipment shed, she takes his arm and turns them around. 

She pats a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll be okay, Dai-chan,” she says. “Just don’t let it interfere in your matches. Because then you’ll _really_ break.” 

And he doesn’t. He can’t; basketball is the only thing he has left now. On the court, they are normal again. On the court, he can breathe. On the court, the ball is in his hands; he passes the ball to Tetsu, who passes it to Kise, who shoots a perfect three-pointer. It is so easy, their teamwork, and on the court, it doesn’t hurt. 

When it happens that smoothly, he’s always surprised that he has feelings at all. 

“Would you like me to enroll you in the emo-punk music club, then?” Satsuki asks, at this. “Kurata-kun from Class 3A mentioned that they need more lyricists.” 

More invective that Aomine can’t think of a retort to. “That’s not a real club,” he grunts back. “And if it is, it shouldn’t be.” 

“Don’t insult Kurata-kun,” says Satsuki serenely. “We’re dating.” 

Aomine’s eyes widen, and he lifts his head. He can barely see. The world is spinning, or maybe he is. Crumbling. “I,” he manages. “I see.” 

Satsuki bursts into unrestrained laughter. “I’m _kidding,_ Dai-chan, god!” she gasps. The world settles back down, but it is now drained of all color. That was not a funny joke, but if Aomine were less _fucking_ pathetic, it might have been. He _hates_ feeling this vulnerable, this _needy._  

But when she pats his back again like a mother, he squeezes his eyes shut and drops his head back onto the picnic table where they are sitting for lunch. _Pat._ They fall into an almost comfortable silence. Satsuki finishes her vending machine soy milk through a straw; in the distance, they can hear the first-years playing soccer, shouting and laughing; further, a trio of friends gossiping over an overdue homework assignment. _Pat._ There is snow under their feet, and she’s wrapped in a baby blue petticoat and a black infinity scarf, he in his uniform without the tie. _Pat._  

“He really is happy, you know,” says Satsuki, after a pause. “Kise-kun.” 

Aomine grunts. “Doesn’t know what he’s missing,” he says without heat. “Because I’m _so_ awesome.” 

Satsuki hums in agreement, and time passes. 

Finally, she drops his head beside his and smiles. “I wouldn’t leave you, Dai-chan,” she says finally. There is a soft rustling as she pushes mittened hands into her pockets. “Not until you’re ready.” 

Aomine Daiki is selfish, and entitled, and he doesn’t know how to be anything else. He doesn’t respond, because past all his raw gratitude for those words, he can’t figure out what to say. 

“Well,” revises Satsuki. _“Maybe_ I will, if it gets really boring, and the guy is really rich.” 

Aomine manages a laugh, and it only sounds a _little_ like he’s being strangled.


End file.
